Light Bulbs Mean Ideas

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Daniel Mowry from Omaha, Nebraska.

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the show.

How can we help?

I have an interesting question.

What did they use instead of light bulbs in those old cartoon strips when they had an idea?

You mean before they started using light bulbs, how did they show that a character came up with a bright idea?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s a great question. I never thought about that.

What should they use? What do you think they ought to use, Daniel?

I have no idea.

My mom was thinking an exclamation point.

Oh, that’s probably a good one.

That’s really good.

Maybe a candle.

Probably.

We do know that the light bulb was, as a bright idea, was popularized by the cartoon Felix the Cat.

Do you know this cartoon?

It’s old from the silent film era, like the 1920s.

I remember seeing a couple of his cartoons, but I don’t remember in grave detail like all the others.

There’s an interesting story to that light bulb if you want to hear it.

It all goes back to this search for a light bulb that would last.

You probably know the story of Thomas Edison and how he tried all these different things to put inside a vacuum that would continue to burn without burning out really fast.

And finally, in 1879 or so, he came up with a carbon filament that meant that we could make light bulbs and have light bulbs and electricity everywhere instead of using candles or gas lamps or gas in the house.

And he became famous for that.

Thomas Edison was the wizard of Menlo Park.

People knew that the light bulb was associated with some kind of genius.

And it wasn’t long after that where it started to be used, where light bulbs became pervasive.

And light bulbs, by the time Felix the Cat came along, there were all these conventions of written cartoons.

Like, how do you show that a character is looking at a thing in a cartoon?

Well, you draw a dotted line from their eyes to the thing.

And even the growlixes, as they became known, the little squiggles that meant naughty words that a character was saying, all these conventions.

And one of the conventions was a light bulb representing a bright idea popping up over the top of someone’s head.

But what’s really interesting, the idea of a bright idea goes back well, like 200 years, maybe even more.

We find bright ideas as far back as the 1700s.

Jonathan Swift actually uses it, and it referred to a clever idea or an inspiration.

So there was these two separate paths of culture meeting.

One is we already had this idea that a good idea was one that was bright,

And we had the idea of a wizard who made a light bulb that we could all use in our houses now,

And then they all merged together in Felix the Cat, which is an incredibly common comic strip.

Huh. What made them decide to change from what they used to do?

I don’t know that they did change.

I don’t know how they represented that.

I have a couple of books on the history of comics in my house,

And I don’t remember any of these books talking at length about this particular idea.

So that’s why Martha and I, our eyes went up when you asked your question.

Because we were like, oh, this is a good one, because it’s not a question that we’ve heard before.

I’m glad I could call up and ask you guys.

We are, too.

We love a puzzle, just like anyone.

Thank you for taking my call.

I really do appreciate that.

We’re glad to help.

Our pleasure, Daniel.

Give us another call sometime, all right?

I will.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

Okay, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You know, my mother was an English teacher, and she described many, many times teaching a class and something clicks,

And then, you know, you describe it as seeing a light bulb go on over the kid’s head.

But we have a notion in English of illumination, literally casting light on something way back, like 1600s easily.

And so it was kind of natural that the light bulb should continue to embody this idea of creativity and genius and intelligence and the eureka moment.

Right, the eureka moment.

And now when I type the word idea on my iPhone, a little light bulb pops up.

Oh, because that’s the emoji that it wants to suggest for you?

Yeah.

That’s awesome.

Isn’t that interesting?

And we’re continuing that still.

I know.

What a long trail.

By the way, Felix the Cat was one of the, if not the first, but one of the first things transmitted on television, a little rotating figurine.

Is that right?

Yeah.

I remember Felix.

Yeah.

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